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Warriors coach Nathan Brown has refused to blame recruit Chad Townsend for his team’s late capitulation as St George Illawarra snatched a golden-point victory in their Friday night clash.
The Warriors were up 18-10 with six minutes remaining at Central Coast Stadium when Townsend, in his first match since his mid-season switch from Cronulla, bizarrely attempted a field goal.
The ball went dead, with the Dragons using a seven-tackle set to score through Jack Bird and swing momentum all their way before a Corey Norman field goal sealed the deal.
Brown revealed post-match that Townsend thought his team were only up by six.
It was a tough night for the halfback who injured his shoulder in a heavy tackle by Tariq Sims in just the second minute.
Brown said Townsend required treatment at halftime to continue, putting him in danger of missing next round’s clash against his old club.
“It’s not great… he had plenty of needles at halftime to get him through the game and he did really well to push through the game and kick well for us,” Brown said
(Tony Feder/Getty Images)
“He really contributed great to us getting to that point in the game.”
The coach felt there were plenty of factors other than Townsend that led to the shock loss.
“He’s a good experienced player and we saw how in the first 70 minutes why we brought him here,” he said.
“We played one of our better-controlled games and kicked the ball better and he freed up Sean Sullivan as a younger half to have less pressure on him.”
He said there was an undesirable pattern with his team to lose a match after being in a winning position.
“We found ourselves in situation that we’ve been in many times this season when we’ve been in a strong position and it’s not a fluke,” Brown said.
“All we can do is keep practising situations at training and keep working hard to manage those parts of the game better.”
Meanwhile, Warriors lock Tohu Harris suffered a head knock and also hurt his shoulder and second-rower Eli Katoa limped off.
For the Dragons, lock Jack de Belin was twice placed on report – for a cannonball tackle and then a lifting tackle.
© AAP
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